Woody species composition, diversity, and ecosystem services of yards along an urban socioeconomic gradient.

Woody plants offer a wide range of valuable ecosystem services, but their distribution across socioeconomic gradients in urban landscapes remains poorly understood. Thus, we explored the effect of socioeconomic and legacy factors on plant species richness and phylogenetic diversity, and the motivations for growing and keeping certain species. We sampled a total of 300 households across a socioeconomic gradient in the city of Harare, Zimbabwe, in high-, medium- and low-density areas, representing low to high wealth strata.

Feasible or foolish: Attempting restoration of a Parthenium hysterophorus invaded savanna using perennial grass seed.

The annual herb Parthenium hysterophorus L. (Asteraceae), remains one of Southern Africa's most significant invasive weeds, commonly invading savannas, and their rangelands, causing severe losses to agriculture, livestock production and native biodiversity. Previous studies have suggested that perennial grasses may act as useful competitive species, capable of suppressing the growth and invasion of P.

Plant functional types determine how close postfire seedlings are from their parents in a species-rich shrubland.

Background And Aims: Fine-scale spatial patterns of the seedlings of co-occurring species reveal the relative success of reproduction and dispersal and may help interpret coexistence patterns of adult plants. To understand whether postfire community dynamics are controlled by mathematical, biological or environmental factors, we documented seedling-adult (putative parent) distances for a range of co-occurring species. We hypothesized that nearest-seedling-to-adult distances should be a function of the distance between the closest conspecific seedlings, closest inter-adult distances and seedling-to-parent ratios, and also that these should scale up in a consistent way from all individuals, to within and between species and finally between functional types (FTs).

Sexual Dimorphism in Anthonomus santacruzi (Coleoptera: Curculionidae): a Biological Control Agent of Solanum mauritianum Scopoli (Solanaceae).

There is evident variation in body size amongst Anthonomus santacruzi Hustache, 1924, weevils. The aims of this study were to assess if the variation in body size in A. santacruzi weevils is a result of sexual dimorphism and what features can be used to distinguish males from females.

Planning for the Maintenance of Floristic Diversity in the Face of Land Cover and Climate Change.

Habitat loss and climate change are primary drivers of global biodiversity loss. Species will need to track changing environmental conditions through fragmented and transformed landscapes such as KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Landscape connectivity is an important tool for maintaining resilience to global change.

Comparative ethnoentomology of edible stinkbugs in southern Africa and sustainable management considerations.

Insects, such as stinkbugs, are able to produce noxious defence chemicals to ward off predators, nevertheless, some ethnic groups have recipes to render them delicious. We provide an example of edible stinkbugs (Encosternum delegorguei) used by two locally separate ethnic groups in South Africa, the Vhavenda and Mapulana, with a third group, the Bolobedu using them for commercial purposes. Structured interview schedules and observations with 106 harvesters were conducted to determine differences in use, nomenclature and oral history, methods of collection and preparation as well as perceptions pertaining to availability.

The South African experience of conservation and social forestry outreach nurseries.

Outreach nurseries are favored conservation and social forestry tools globally, but, as with many integrated conservation and development programs (ICDPs), they do not always produce anticipated results. A synopsis of the experience of South African practitioners is provided in this study of 65 outreach nurseries. South African outreach nurseries frequently include financial objectives, creating additional challenges in simultaneously attaining conservation and socioeconomic goals.